


disk fragmentation

by takamicchi



Series: binary star system [1]
Category: The Boys (TV 2019)
Genre: Brother-Sister Relationships, Dysfunctional Family, Families of Choice, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-24
Updated: 2019-12-24
Packaged: 2021-02-25 21:33:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,110
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21922234
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/takamicchi/pseuds/takamicchi
Summary: Annie was four years old when mother and father came home with her new brother.“Annie,” her mother carefully led the blonde boy closer to her, “this is John. Starting today, he’s going to be with us.”
Relationships: Starlight | Annie January & The Homelander | John
Series: binary star system [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1578904
Comments: 10
Kudos: 137





	disk fragmentation

**Author's Note:**

> disclaimer: i never read the comics. didnt find out about what happens in the comics until after i wrote this fic. apeofkpaoekpgoaekr...

Annie was four years old when mother and father came home with her new brother.

“Annie,” her mother carefully led the blonde boy closer to her, “this is John. Starting today, he’s going to be with us.”

Annie looked up at his face. He didn’t smile. Instead, he stared straight into Annie’s eyes in an almost unnerving fashion.

“Who is he?” Annie asked her mom.

Her mother exchanged looks with her father. He looked away, sour expression on his face before her mother finally replied with, “he’s going to be your big brother from now on.”

“My brother?” Annie said, looking at John’s face again.

“John, this is Annie,” her— _their_ —mother patted the boy’s shoulder. “Get along, yes?”

“Yes,” John muttered, frown evident on his face.

Their father looked away at the sight.

* * *

“Where are we?” John asked her in a disdainful tone when he looked at the fences and suburban houses that surrounded them. Annie didn’t really understand the question—why, they were home, weren’t they?

“It’s hot,” he complained, wiping sweat on his face. He squinted his eyes at the sky in discomfort. “Was the sun always this bright?”

Annie didn’t really think anything of it. It was just… normal for her. She didn’t feel like it was hotter than usual (it was summer after all) and the sun didn’t _feel_ any brighter.

“Are you not going to say anything?” John told Annie in a scathing tone. “The woman told us to get along, or did you forget?”

“ _Mom_ ,” Annie corrected. “She’s not ‘the woman’. She’s our mom.”

John scoffed. “She’s _your_ mom. I won’t be here for long. It’s only a matter of time before they take me back.”

Annie shot John a confused look. “Who’s ‘they’?”

John smiled for the first time and the sight of it sent chills down Annie’s spine. Something in her gut screamed at her to run away, but she stood firmly in place waiting for an answer.

“Well, it’s not for you to know,” John said.

Annie walked away once she realized John wasn’t going to answer any of her questions.

Honestly, what a weirdo.

* * *

Despite John’s beliefs, nobody ever came back for him.

“School’s starting up again soon, ain’t it?” Annie’s father spoke up at the dinner table. “Our little girl’s going to be in kindergarten already!”

John’s pinky twitched. Annie smiled giddily at the reminder.

“They grow up so fast, don’t they?” Annie’s mother said, shooting Annie a fond look. She turned to her husband, “Did you remember to enroll John in the nearby middle school?”

John blinked.

“ _Shit_ ,” the father cursed, “I mean _shoot._ I—forgot. There’s still time.”

“Don’t wait until the last minute for these sorts of things,” the mother scolded him exasperatedly. “Call the school tomorrow.”

“I’m on it,” the father said.

“Excuse me,” John politely cut in, garnering everyone’s (including Annie’s) attention. “But are you implying I’m going to be participating in public education?”

Silence.

Unexpectedly, Annie was the first one to break it.

“Everyone has to go to school,” Annie explained to him. In a smug tone, she added, “It’s the law.”

“We did think about homeschool,” the mother said. “We know that you’re not… quite used to the way things work around here.”

John frowned at the patronizing tone directed towards him. He didn’t appreciate that at all. He was _not_ a child, thought the eleven-year-old boy.

“But getting a tutor is expensive,” the mother continued to explain. “And we thought it’d be good for you to… meet other people. Right, honey?”

“Yes,” the father blurted out. “What she said. And like Annie said, every kid in America goes to school. Why wouldn’t you?”

 _Because I’m not like the other kids_ , John thought. He was baffled at the idea. _Him_ , going to school? A public school, nonetheless? Surely, that was below him.

* * *

Annie hummed a ditty as they strolled through the mall together.

They must appear as a normal family to others, even if they were anything but. After all, John felt no real attachment to the other three members of his supposed “family”. Yet they looked alike enough not to divert any attention to themselves.

One father, one mother, one daughter, one son. The perfect nuclear family.

John didn’t have much experience with fashion.

“How about this one?” The father took the shirt off the rack, holding it in front of John. “What do you think?”

The question was directed towards John, but John felt neither favor nor disapproval for the article of clothing. What mattered the most to people was the personality anyways. Yet, the father seemed to hold the opinion that presentation was very important, especially in middle school.

“It’s okay,” John said, feeling disassociated from the conversation.

They met back with Annie and the mother at the food court. They seemed to have bought more than what John and the father have bought despite them only coming out for John today.

“Jesus Donna, what did you buy?” the father whispered in his wife’s ear, appalled. John’s super-hearing could pick up on the conversation.

“Look,” the mother said out loud while pulling out several dresses, “they’re for the upcoming hero pageants. I don’t want her to have to wear the same costume twice.”

“Does it matter that much?” the father said.

“You’d be surprised,” the mother replied smoothly.

The father clenched his fist. John was sure he was the only one who noticed. He leaned in to whisper, “I mean the pageants. Do the pageants matter that much to you?”

The mother shoved the father with only just a little bit of force. With a dazzling yet faux smile, she said, “Let’s not talk about this now. The kids are hungry, and we wouldn’t want to spoil their appetite.”

They ended up getting McDonald’s. John denied the offer for a happy meal, insisting instead on a full meal. His body needed it, after all.

Annie tore open the red cardboard box, pulling out her free toy. She smiled at the little figurine, who John vaguely noted as being Jack from Jupiter (a superhero currently in Vought’s rooster). John couldn’t fathom what value the little toy had. It was just a cheap piece of plastic, couldn’t be worth more than a dollar on paper.

“…do you want him?” Annie asked, surprising John when she addressed him seemingly out of the blue. On further thought, he realized he must have been staring at Annie and her toy for too long.

“Keep it,” John told her. The parents were watching them with curious eyes. Curious eyes that reminded him too much of the scientists that would observe him. “He’s not my favorite.”

Annie’s eyes twinkled. “Who’s your favorite, then?”

John didn’t keep up with the superheroes that much. He didn’t have a real answer for Annie. Instead, he flatly told her, “You.”

Annie giggled, wiggling her legs under the table. To John’s annoyance, once of her foot managed to kick him right below the knee. “I’m not a hero!”

“Not yet,” the mother said. “But someday, you will. I believe in you, Annie.”

For some reason, John really didn’t like the way the mother said that. It felt wrong to him on some level, but he didn’t know why.

* * *

John missed his old blanket.

Sometimes, when he accompanied the family to Walmart, he would linger in the bed section. He would stare at the array of blankets, but none of them came even close to the one he wanted. The one he was imagining inside his head.

“What’s he doing?” The father whispered to the mother when he caught John frozen in place, eyes intently staring at all the blankets.

“Oh, don’t think much of it,” the mother waved off. Annie was hanging off the other end of the shopping cart, bouncing happily. “They’re bound to act a little _different_ than us.”

John’s lip twitched.

* * *

John’s eyes shot wide open when his hearing picked up noise in the house at five in the morning. He focused, squinting at the wall in the direction of the noise.

It was the mother. She was shaking Annie.

“Annie. Annie!” the mother hissed at the sleeping girl. “It’s time for the hero pageant, or did you forget?”

Annie groaned, eyes just barely opening.

John also groaned, wishing the walls in this house were as soundproof as the walls in the lab. The mother bought five dresses at the mall.

That meant five more mornings just like this one.

* * *

He watched the footage of the hero pageant Annie participated in.

Her smile was dazzling, but it wasn’t genuine. John knew the difference between a fake smile and a real smile. He knew what a real smile on Annie’s face looked like.

His eyes glanced back to the father’s face, who stared at Annie with such intent and… _guilt_ in his eyes. He looked so troubled watching the television where his very daughter was.

John wondered if they knew something he didn’t. Or if he just didn’t understand them enough to piece the puzzle together. He was good at that—piecing puzzles together. Why couldn’t he piece _this one_ together?

“Father,” John said. The word felt foreign on his tongue. This man was undoubtedly not his father nor his dad nor anything close. But he was supposed to be those things to him (even if he was not).

The word snapped the father out of the trance, his eyes bulging out of his head. He stared at John as if he was an alien, which truth be told he might as well have been one.

“What?” the father asked, trying to hide the surprise in his voice but spectacularly failing.

“What… is that?” John pointed at the television. “What are ‘hero pageants’ and why does Annie attend them?”

The father froze in place, at a loss for words. He opened his mouth, but no words came out. “W—well…”

“Well?”

“I mean—she’s making the best use of her talents,” the father explained. “She’s always wanted to be a superhero and hero pageants are a way for her to… come closer to that dream.”

“She wants to be a hero?” John muttered, eyes narrowing at the screen. “How come she never mentioned that before?”

“Wh—I—she…” the father stuttered.

“She’s obviously not happy being onstage,” John added emotionlessly. With a leering smile appearing on his face, he said, “Even I can see that.”

He was quite proud of being able to see through people’s lies.

“…It’s Donna,” the father sighed dejectedly. Ah, there it was. The truth. John was no human lie detector (one of the _only_ powers he didn’t have), but he could feel that it was the truth. “She… she forces Annie to go to these _things_ thinking it’ll help her in the long run.”

“I think you’re right,” the father said. “Annie probably doesn’t like them.”

“Stop her, then,” John said as if it was the obvious answer in the world. Which it was. “It can’t be that hard.”

“That’s where you’re wrong, John,” the father said. “It’s harder than it looks. I know you’re not… like most kids. But things aren’t always as straightforward as what you’re suggesting.”

“I don’t see what’s stopping you,” John said. “She is _just_ a woman. Wife, mother, none of those titles matter in the end. She’s just… a _human_. You can make her stop if you want to.”

John felt the pace of the father’s heartbeat increase rapidly afterwards and John wondered if he said anything that might have set the man… off.

Just like Dr. Vogelbaum before he seemingly abandoned John in this house with this useless family.

* * *

John looked at himself in the mirror.

He couldn’t believe he was actually setting foot in a _public middle school._ But apparently, just because he’s a superpowered eleven-year-old, it didn’t actually exempt him from going to school.

He and Annie left together, their parents trusting Annie (despite the fact that she was _seven_ years younger than him) to lead him to the bus stop.

He walked along the sidewalk of their suburban neighborhood. He was thankful that the mornings were cooler than the afternoon—he found very quickly that the sun was almost unbearable during the afternoon.

Annie hopped along his side, playing a little game with herself in which she didn’t allow herself to step on a crack no matter what.

“I saw that,” John said, when the tip of Annie’s heel touched the crack of the sidewalk.

“That didn’t count,” Annie said, continuing her uneven hops. “It wasn’t _on_ the line.”

“It definitely was,” John argued. “Will you stop this pointless game now? You already lost.”

“No, _you_ lost.”

“I wasn’t even—” John cut himself off, peeved but recognizing that it wasn’t worth it. “You know what? Never mind.”

* * *

A pattern that John noticed was the unnerving fixation that the mother had on Annie. At least, she definitely paid more attention and care to Annie than she ever did him.

“How was your first day, sweetie?” the mother cooed at Annie.

Annie smiled—a genuine smile—and she exclaimed, “It was _so_ good!”

There was something… treacherous about the mother that John couldn’t put his finger on. Despite knowing that fact, he still couldn’t help feeling jealous over the lack of attention he received from her. She was supposed to be _his_ mother too, wasn’t she?

“What about you?”

Oh, how John wished that it was the mother who asked him. It wasn’t.

Annie’s eyes were peering at him with curiosity and he wondered why she was so drawn to him despite his continued rudeness towards her. Was she just naturally stupid? Or naïve? Well, she was only four years old.

John, with a straight face, answered, “It was fine. No issues whatsoever.”

“I hear school sucks more when you’re older,” Annie said.

“Annie!” the mother scolded her daughter.

“I wouldn’t know,” John said. “I’ve never been to school before today.”

“Never?” Annie asked, eyes widening. “You never had kindergarten?”

“I never went to primary school, period,” John told her.

“Homeschooled,” the mother quickly lied for him. “He was homeschooled by his previous family. You know what homeschooling is, right Annie?”

John felt a pang of annoyance surge through him. The words _previous family_ triggered something particularly unpleasant in him.

“I didn’t have a previous family,” John clarified, because if it was one thing he hated, it was lies. “And I wasn’t homeschooled. Not unless you count a scientist teaching me everything he thought I needed to know in order to succeed as the ‘perfect hero’.”

Annie looked innocently at him, not fully comprehending what he had just admitted. She was processing it, still.

Meanwhile, the mother was giving him a warning look. But John could see the fear reflected in those eyes.

She was afraid of him. Of course she was.

* * *

The father hadn’t come home.

The mother wasn’t surprised. Poor Annie was worried—he could tell from the way she carried herself and how her heartbeat fastened whenever it was time for dinner and the father’s spot remained empty at the dining table.

John guessed that the father couldn’t take it in the end.

He wondered what kind of lie the mother came up with this time around.

* * *

John sat on the roof of the house, staring out into the night sky.

He was sure that Dr. Vogelbaum was not coming back for him. He could always run away if he wanted to. There was no stopping him from doing so—there was nothing here for him.

“John?”

John looked behind him and there was Annie, crawling on the roof towards him. He almost forgot at times that Annie was the same as him in many ways—she just always seemed so… normal.

Then again, she was young. (He was not.)

“What are you doing?” Annie asked.

“Thinking,” John answered. “Thinking about a lot.”

“Why are you thinking on the roof?”

“It’s quiet up here,” John said. “I don’t like being inside the house.” It was suffocating. _That woman_ was suffocating.

“’Cause you don’t like us?” Annie said.

“I never said that,” John snappishly replied. “But… it’s not… home. To me.”

“Oh,” Annie said. “What’s your home like?”

“White,” John answered. “It was all… white. And clean.”

Annie nodded, understanding that their tiny house was not the most… sanitary as it could be.

“It’s very quiet. It’s even more quiet than out here—it’s irritating to me, having to deal with all these overlayered sounds…”

John frowned. “That’s another thing. There’s too many people here—I used to only see a select number of people every day. Now, I’m constantly surrounded by people I don’t know.”

“Do you not like people?”

“I don’t,” John said. “They’re… annoying. Like pests.”

“Like me,” Annie said.

“Yes, well at least I know you,” John replied. “You’re…”

Annie looked at him expectantly.

“…my sister,” John finished hesitantly. “Or so, they told you to be.”

“I always wanted a brother,” Annie told him with a smile—a genuine smile—and it twisted the inside of John’s gut at the sight.

“I’m not your real brother though,” John said.

“That’s okay,” Annie said. “I don’t care.”

“Somehow, I’m not surprised by that,” John sardonically replied. He leaned back so the moon was near the center of his vision. Annie did the same, lying with her flat back on the roof. “If you happen to fall down, just remember it’s not my fault that you were up here. That was on your own accord.”

Annie giggled. “I won’t fall down. Even if I do, I won’t get hurt. I’m strong.”

“Me too,” John said. “I bet I’m stronger than you.”

“No, you’re not,” Annie retorted. “I’m stronger.”

John scoffed, but he felt… at ease. Serene. Satisfied. No, none of those words were the ones he was looking for. Perhaps “appeased” was more fitting. He wasn’t home, but maybe… that wasn’t all that bad of a thing.

“Donna would _kill_ us if she found out we were up here,” John said.

“Nah,” Annie said. “Mom doesn’t care.”

“Do you come up here often?”

Annie shook her head. “No,” she said. “It’s lonely up here.”

“That’s what it’s usually like for the people on the top,” John said.

“That’s sad,” Annie said.

But it didn’t have to be that way. For them. Perhaps that was the reason why Dr. Vogelbaum sent him to live with this family in particular.

“Hey John,” Annie said. “Am I your friend?”

John didn’t quite smile—he wasn’t at the stage yet. But he patted Annie on the head and left without saying another word.

Maybe someday.


End file.
